If You’re Shrinking and You Know It, Clap Your Hands!

Suffering with whiplash as I did last night live-blogging the most frenetic, schizophrenic State of the Union it has ever been my sorry duty to cover (I only survived thanks to our commenters), one of the more memorable spastic moments – besides the assassination of Bobby Cunningham (don’t ask) – was POTATUS revisiting the infamous Cookie Monster shrinkflation embarrassment of a mere few days ago.

I shouldn’t say “revisit” because that sounds as if he segued into it normally. What he actually did was careen into it like an out-of-control Wavy Lays delivery truck swerving from curb to curb before crashing. “CHIPS!” came screaming out of his piehole and I barely had time to record it for posterity before he raced off to the next subject. It went something like this (and read from the bottom up):

10:06 From chips to collections. Told you I couldn’t keep up. He’s saving us chips and chunks. Oh! And now cable, ticket sellers and whatever tf.

SAVE THE CHIPS!!! 

Here with go WITH THE CHIPS!!!

10:00 And now SENIORS Holy crap

God help me, I tried.

Once that man’s three remaining brain cells wrap around a story, they are glued to it, and chips are it for his shrinkflation schtick. 

But his obsession with chips and recent collusion with public television puppets aside, no one is falling for Biden’s empty cookie jar stories being the fault of evil manufacturers soaking an unsuspecting and vulnerable public.

Bidenomics is shrinking the cookies in the jar and has been. For everyone.

FACT CHECK: Since Biden took office, costs are up 17.9% and real wages are down 2% pic.twitter.com/ty4iRXq56E

— GOP (@GOP) March 8, 2024

What does that look like if you do before and afters of product purchases? This little video was pretty illustrative of what people who do their own grocery shopping know all too well.

Under Joe Biden, grocery bills are up while food portions are down.

Shrinkflation has been blamed on “greedy corporations” when it’s actually tied to Bidenomics.

Watch @Comm4Prosperity‘s affiliate Unleash Prosperity Now’s latest ad ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/YmjcKsuZVP

— Stephen Moore (@StephenMoore) March 7, 2024

I inadvertently wound up with a prime example myself this past week in my own kitchen. Trying to whip up a quick dinner after slaving away on the ‘puter all day, I pulled a couple bags of cheater taters out of the cupboard and went to check the dates before I used them. “Oh,” I thouoght. “Betty’s refreshed the packaging, too.”

Well, that wasn’t the only thing refreshed and I was irked as I’d already gotten the wet ingredients in the saucepan.

The new bag – on the right – had shrunk to 4 oz from the old 4.7 and now took only 1/2 a cup of milk as opposed to the 1 1/2C it used to (which I’d already dumped in the pan).

GGGRRRRRR

Not happy.

But it’s not happy about what Bidenomics is doing to my taters, not so much at Betty Crocker. And I sure as hay-yull don’t want the geriatric dementia-addled menace making things any worse with brilliant executive pen-swipe fixes.

…But Biden’s economically illiterate attempts to pin shrinkflation on greedy corporations aren’t telling even half of the story. Here are three things to keep in mind when Biden starts spouting off tonight.

First, shrinkflation is just inflation.

It’s not a side effect of inflation or a consequence of inflation. It is inflation. So when Biden, or anyone else, is complaining about this, what they are really saying is, “Wow, it sure sucks that your money doesn’t buy as much stuff as it used to.” Maybe that can score Biden some points for looking like he shares the concerns of regular Americans—even though he hasn’t had to worry about a household grocery budget in decades—but this is nothing more than an attempt at rhetorical misdirection.

Second, shrinkflation is not a new phenomenon (because it is no different from inflation, which has also been around for as long as people have been using money).

…Finally, Biden’s proposed solution to shrinkflation would automatically cause prices to rise.

I have come to learn there are other creative ways for big corporations to address the pinch that Bidenomics and inflationary pressures are putting on their bottom line. 

A dear friend of mine and his wife were strolling through a WalMart here in Pensacola just the other day, and were kind enough to let me use their snapshot of how this store was coping with shrinking margins.

I guess you could call it “new math.” Works for Democrats so why not give it a shot?

Tragically, rollbacks aren’t what they used to be.

We know who did that.

Man, you’ve got to be on your toes these days about every little thing.